BOOK REVIEWS

So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, The Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq

By Greg Mitchell

The fact that the press had a huge hand in helping the Bush administration sell the war on Iraq to the U.S. public is hardly a new revelation. There are already shelves of books detailing how mainstream media failed their audiences, serving as little more than publicists for the hawks that had been dying to go back to war with Saddam since Bush I. But Greg Mitchell, editor of the media trade pub Editor & Publisher, does such a beautiful job of laying out the argument that the mainstream media, both print and TV, were asleep at the wheel in the months leading up to the bombing and subsequent war with Iraq, that his book is worth reading over all others on the topic.

Mitchell’s main assessment is that the media, unsure of how to react after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, simply stopped asking the right questions. Even teenage reporters at high school papers know that you don’t simply take statements from authority figures as gospel without asking more questions or looking for details to back up the statements. Mitchell recalls speeches given by administration reps - including the infamous UN address that ultimately destroyed Colin Powell’s credibility - to point out the poorly researched statements and arguments for war, and in some cases outright lies.

The strongest indictment on the media, however, comes straight from the reporters who helped create the pre-war hype, when Mitchell reprints the articles that in retrospect would get a failing grade in just about any journalism school. He also quotes extensively from reporters who confess to the amount of pressure they were under from bosses, (both publishers and network heads) to turn up the pro-America, jingoism on everything from the stories they were reporting on to the waving American flags in the corner of the TV screens, making every station look like a Fox News clone. (B+) –John B. Moore

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